I almost went that night to Malfoy Manor to talk to Draco. I would've, but it was late, I was tired, and I had Teddy. I went home instead. When the morning came, I got distracted caring for my rambunctious godson. When I finally handed Teddy off to Dromeda, I was emotionally tired. The imminent discussion with Draco would be taxing and I needed to be in the right frame of mind for it, so I didn't go. Then I put it off some more, procrastinating.

I procrastinated until the media started buzzing with word that Draco Malfoy had completed another painting, possibly a Potter painting. The painting would either be available for reprints in the near future, if indeed a Potter painting, or available for sell, if on another subject. Either way, Draco was a big name in the art world and the completion of another of his paintings was big news.

Figuring the painting was of the funeral, I rushed straight to Malfoy Manor.

"Harry. I thought you weren't going to come," Draco said by way of greeting.

"I think I figured out what you want, but I don't know if I'm ready," I returned.

"Tell me, oh great savior, what do I want?" he asked sarcastically.

"You want to have my baby, Draco."

He caught my eye and then turned away. He busied himself fiddling with a teapot set out with a tea tray, but did not respond verbally.

"I was right?" I asked, awe and a little bit of shock in my voice. No one had ever wanted to have my baby before. He didn't respond. "I don't know if I could give up my child."

"I can share. People don't think I can, because I'm a Malfoy, but I can. I'd prefer it, in fact. Children are meant to have two parents. I would've loved to do the whole falling in love and getting married first thing, but life just hasn't worked out that way for me," he said, not looking up from the teapot.

I gasped at the revelation. He was still asking to have my baby, but it wouldn't have to be a sperm donation like I'd thought. "Share custody?" I asked, to make sure.

"Yes. You could have weekends if you want. Merlin, I have the room, you could move in, if you want. I just want your baby. I want to hold her." His arms moved to his chest, voice emphatic.

"Why mine?" I asked, needing to know this answer most of all.

"It's always been you, with me. I've tried to avoid it. I dated other men. I did my best to live my life without you, but it always comes back to you. I don't know how to explain it," he answered.

I nodded, because I'd always felt the same way about him.

"I need time to think about it more. Give me time?" I asked pleadingly. I knew I'd already delayed too long, but I hadn't known he was willing to share. I hadn't known he felt about me the way I felt about him. I hadn't considered it. I needed to decide if I could share with him, because even if we both felt the same way, we still had a lot of history to overcome to make this work.

He nodded. "Go. You have one week."

I went.

I didn't need a week. I thought about it for less than an hour. Then I came back.

"I take it, you agree," Draco said upon my return.

"Yes," I answered.

He led me by the hand silently to his room. I thought this was going to be a sperm donation still. I thought he'd send me to the loo, ask me to jerk one off, and I'd hand over my seed. I'd donate the sperm and then get visitation. Maybe we'd try dating. But what happened was that he sat on my lap and pulled at my robes. I pushed his hands away.

"What are you doing?" I asked, mind racing. Could Draco Malfoy really have been about to do what I thought he was going to do? Was he attracted to me like that?

"Making a baby. Do I need to explain the birds and the bees to you?" he asked. I stared at him dumbfounded and he continued. "See, when two people want to make a baby-"

I cut him off there. "You want to have sex with me?" My tone was one of disbelief. Yes, he'd just confessed his obsession with me and yes, I was used to people throwing themselves at me for sex. But this was Draco Malfoy and I wasn't expecting it from him.

"Yes. I take it I'm not good enough for you. Reformed Death Eaters deserve a second chance, except when it comes to your bed, Potter?" Draco sneered.

"No," I said. Then I took his face in my hands and kissed him firm on the lips. "I just thought you wouldn't want more than a donation. But if we are doing this, it's not going to be a one-night stand. I want a real relationship."

"As in marriage? Are you asking to elope?" He squinted one eye as he looked at me, trying to figure out what I meant.

"Eventually. I was actually thinking of dating. We could go out to dinner," I suggested.

"And I could buy you flowers and woo you. I could write ballads about your beauty too." He smirked.

I winced. "Maybe just dinner. The paintings are far too much already."

"Fine, then you can buy me the flowers and woo me," he challenged.

I nodded. "But no ballads. I can't sing."

"I wouldn't want you to; I've heard your singing," he teased.

I chuckled.

"So where are you taking me?" he asked.

"Um…" Put on the spot, I was wracking my brain for somewhere we could go that he would like. "There's that French pureblood restaurant in London, but the press likes to stake out the place and we'd probably end up on the front page of the Prophet."

"It's okay, Harry; we don't have to go out. We could just go to the dining room and have the elves make us something," he suggested.

I nodded eagerly. "And we could talk."

That was just what we did. The elves served sandwiches and Draco and I talked about what we wanted for our futures. We obviously both wanted kids; he surprised me by revealing he wanted more than one, which was good, because I wanted three. We both wanted to find that special someone who completed us. We both wanted to get married, but had both had trouble finding anyone even worth dating after our Hogwarts relationships had ended. We both didn't want to let the public into our private lives. And we both wanted him to stop selling paintings of me and move onto selling his new stuff; I wanted it more than he did, but he had a fierce drive to prove that he could be great without painting me.

"So Harry, why'd you and Weasley breakup? I want the real reason, not the grew apart bullshite you fed the papers," Draco requested.

I shrugged. "Because I'm bi."

"Oh do elaborate," Draco requested, pressing the tips of his fingertips together, as if he was settling in for a good story.

"I was so stressed and busy with the war, that I didn't realize that I like men too. Then after it was all over, this relief came washing over me and with it, this attraction to men. She was my girlfriend, but I couldn't stop staring at men and it creeped her out. She thought I was gay. I tried to explain that I liked both, but she didn't get it," I explained.

"Witch Weekly speculates that the two of you still hookup, sexually. Is that true?" The glint in his eye was back.

"No! Of course not!" I exclaimed. He lifted an eyebrow. "We're still friends, but that's it. We get seen talking in public and the gossip mongers go crazy. That's all it is: gossip."

"So you have no desire to get back together with her?" he asked.

"No. We're alright as friends, but she still doesn't really understand how I could be attracted to witches and wizards at the same time. I won't go down that road again," I insisted.

He nodded, satisfied with my answer.

"Is it going to be a problem for you?" I asked.

"While I dislike your friends, I don't really see them being a problem on my end. As long as they don't start something, that is," he replied.

"No. I meant with my sexuality. Does it bother you that I'm bi?" I asked, holding my breath. I'd already considered what my friends thought of him. The majority were willing to forgive and the ones who weren't hadn't spoken to me since the trials anyway. What I was most concerned about was whether he'd have the same reaction as Ginny.

"Why would I? Your fondness for wizards suits me just fine," he replied.

"I like witches too. What about that?" I asked insistently.

He shrugged. "Why should that bother me? As long as you aren't trying to bring one into my bed or rubbing my nose in some crush you have, then I don't care," he answered.

I nodded. There was a pause and then I changed the subject. "What shape does your Patronus take?"

"I've never been able to cast the Patronus charm." He tapped his index finger to his lips as he thought. "I should hope it would be something fierce, like a dragon. But knowing my luck, it'd turn out to be a unicorn or something."

"You ought to learn. I could teach you," I offered. There were other ways to ward against Dementors and besides, the Ministry had the beasts under control now—there were only the rare hatching of old eggs left in remote misty mountains to deal with—so knowing the Patronus charm wasn't as critical these days, but it was still one of my favorites.

He shrugged. "Next you'll be asking about my Expelliarmus, which is fine, by the way. I guess dating the Savior comes with free Patronus and Expelliarmus lessons," he teased, a smirk of his face.

I had the sudden urge to kiss that smirk off his face. But instead I laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. He laughed with me and it was beautiful.

Later, when the laughing died down, Draco schooled his features and asked me a bit stiffly, "Let's say we do pursue a relationship. What do you think will be our biggest obstacle?"

"Um…I don't know…It's a toss-up, I guess; between the press trying to invade our lives and our past together getting in the way of our future together," I answered.

"I'm good at controlling the press; just feed them something you don't mind them knowing about and they stay away from the issue you aren't ready to discuss," he replied.

"And Kyara?"

He shrugged. "I was ready to discuss her."

"What about our pasts?" I asked.

"I think I can put what you did to me behind me. I deserved what you did to me; it's only Kyara who didn't deserve it. I know you are sorry and regret it; I saw you cry at the funeral. I think I forgive you. What about you? Can you forgive me?" he asked.

"I already have. I forgave you a long time ago. It took me a while to forgive you completely, but I started forgiving you in sixth year. When you saved me that Easter, you were mostly forgiven. By the time the war ended, you were completely forgiven," I answered.

He nodded, contemplative.

"What about you? What do you think our biggest challenge will be?" I asked, repeating his question back at him.

"I don't know if it's our challenge, precisely. It's mostly my challenge that I need to work through." He paused and I let him get his thoughts together. "It's Kyara. I lost her and that pain is the deepest pain I've ever felt. I worry that having a new baby will be setting myself up for another fall, if something goes wrong. Or even if it goes right, what if I can't get what happened to Kyara out of my head? But I don't want to forget her either. She will always be my first born." There was a pause. "I worry about that sort of stuff."

"I'll help you through it. If you're feeling low, we can talk about it. I can be supportive if you want to remember her, or I can help you from going into a destructive spiral if you get too caught up on the bad things. We can do this together," I replied.

He nodded. That just left one serious issue, but it was a very serious one and I didn't want to tackle it so soon after the last one. The elves served treacle tarts then and I used it as an excuse to put off the matter for a bit. Draco filled in the silence with small talk, telling me about his life these days. He liked to brew, but only in his spare time. He was a painter, traveling all over the world to do so. But what he really loved was the painting itself, not the selling them. Right now he was enraptured by hippocamps, making frequent travels to dive in the Mediterranean to get inspiration for his painting. He had a fondness for nature, because it afforded him with some of the most wonderful sites to paint.

I nodded, happy that he wasn't still caught up on painting the war. I'd heard many suggestions that he should paint other war heroes and additional war scenes, which was surely the route that would net him the most money, but he wasn't interested in it for the money.

When dessert was over and the conversation had been quiet for minutes on end, I got up my courage for the discussion to come. "Did you really want to kill yourself?" I asked, looking him in the eye.

"Yes," he answered sincerely.

"Why?"

"My whole life revolved around my father; then my father is arrested for attacking a child. Worse, he lost to a child who won't use anything stronger than an Expelliarmus! I looked up to that wizard more than anyone else in the world. It was humiliating. Then I was brought before the Dark Lord, forced to take my father's place, and ordered to do something against my nature. I thought death would be an easy way out of it all," he answered.

I nodded. I had never been there myself, but I could sympathize. "Do you still want to kill yourself?"

He shrugged, indifferent.

I jumped up and screamed in his face. I don't know what I said, I just yelled. I couldn't live in a world without him. He had no right leaving me.

"Alright, alright. I yield!" he exclaimed, grabbing my hands as I pounded his chest for emphasis.

"You yield!?" I may have screamed it, but I didn't mean to.

"Yes. If you want me to live so badly, then I will live for you. I've been waiting to find something to live for," he said, eyes shining.

"You didn't have anything to live for?" I asked, curious and sad at the thought of it.

"I did for a few months; I had Kyara." Tears started dripping down his face.

I pulled him close and wiped the tears away. "I'm sorry."

He nodded.

"Were you really going to live for her though?" I asked. "You said you only made her, so that you could have an heir and commit suicide."

"That was the plan up until the point I realized I was actually pregnant. I fell in love with her. I wouldn't have left her to fend for herself. I would've devoted my life to making her life happy and helping her become a better person than I could ever be." There was a sparkle in his eye as he spoke about the child he'd lost.

"Then why did you shrug?" I asked.

"She's dead and you haven't given me a new child to live for yet. If I died right now, my mother would be the only one to miss me."

His answer broke my heart. "I'd miss you," I insisted.

He smirked. "I haven't actually fantasized about killing myself in a long time; not since my father's suicide."

Lucius Malfoy had killed himself his first night in Azkaban, rather than serve his life's sentence.

I squeezed Draco's hand. "If we do this, I can't have you giving up and leaving me alone with the baby."

He looked into my eyes and said, "I won't. If this all works, I'll have too much to live for to consider it, even on my worst days."

He smiled and I smiled in return, engulfing him in a hug.

He pushed me down and lowered himself onto me, and this time I didn't stop him.

Author's Note: There's more, but I'm going to skip forward in time and change plot directions, glossing over how they get from here to happily married with kids. So I think it's best to make the rest a sequel and end this story here.